


tell me this feeling i'm feeling is not in vain

by soldierwitch



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierwitch/pseuds/soldierwitch
Summary: The people in Hope Springs are happy. The kind of happy that comes from living right and doing good. Clarke doesn't know if she has it in her to be happy like that but she likes to think she has it in her to be her own kind of happy. Maybe not for some time. Maybe not until she can knock down her walls and embrace what life has to hand her again but someday. It may not be the someday she thought she'd get. No that one's gone and passed. A false grave took that promise from her. A promise with a siren song so strong she held onto it for years, kept it alive in her heart, held it close and breathed it in like oxygen. It's a song that flits in and out of her ears on a lark, on a whim, on a prayer like maybe and almost wrapped up in one never to be realized dream.post s5, future fic.





	tell me this feeling i'm feeling is not in vain

**Author's Note:**

> So, this came out of nowhere and knocked me out of the sky. I wouldn't call it season 6 spec but it is set in the nebulous future that the season finale set-up. The title of the fic is taken from [Vain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k18ofSwEnTU) by Kirby.

The Bar in Hope Springs is a small, sweaty little thing that Clarke imagines Arkadia's cantina would have grown into had it been given the chance. People are dancing clumsily together as their laughter lifts into the air. There's a girl doing a saucy number in the back living up to the promise of a red dress on a hard day's night. Clarke doesn't know if this was the chance Monty and Harper wanted for them, if they were meant to mix it up with the inhabitants of this planet and cut loose, but she'd like to think they'd call this fun and spin a tango in the middle of the floor just to see their friends smile.

Peace is hard to come by. Sometimes it feels like Clarke has lived a thousand lives and her soul will never get rest. Sometimes it feels like all she’s made for is war and death and every peaceful interlude is just the calm before another storm. It's been difficult these last few weeks to not wait for the shoe to drop, to go on and put her armor away and embrace this new wonderful life where she has prospects. Where there's a guy at the bar sipping on a drink and eying her. Where the girl in the red dress keeps twirling her skirt and wiggling in her direction like an invitation. It's enough to cut and run; it's enough to sit her drink down on the table and join the fray. But she doesn't know what to do so she stays put and enjoys the scene.

The people in Hope Springs are happy. The kind of happy that comes from living right and doing good. Clarke doesn't know if she has it in her to be happy like that but she likes to think she has it in her to be her own kind of happy. Maybe not for some time. Maybe not until she can knock down her walls and embrace what life has to hand her again but someday. It may not be the someday she thought she'd get. No that one's gone and passed. A false grave took that promise from her. A promise with a siren song so strong she held onto it for years, kept it alive in her heart, held it close and breathed it in like oxygen. It's a song that flits in and out of her ears on a lark, on a whim, on a prayer like maybe and almost wrapped up in one never to be realized dream.

That someday isn't hers to wish for anymore no matter how much it feels like he is. No matter how much he looks like hers under the strung up lights with his head tipped back and his hands in the air. The smooth column of his neck isn't hers to kiss. The slip of his shirt above his pants exposing the slightest bit of skin isn't hers to touch. She's not supposed to count his freckles and recount and recount until she has the number memorized. He is not hers. Not even when he smiles. Not even when he softens around her daughter and speaks soft tales of days long past, centuries unfolding on his tongue just to see the child's eyes light with wonder. Bellamy belongs to the stars and he belongs to the land but he does not belong to her. And she's been trying to make peace with that reality even though her heart breaks over it. Because really he's a terrible dancer. Gangly and awkward. Only on the floor because Raven dragged him onto it and he's humoring her. And all Clarke wants to do is grind up in his space or maybe play with the ends of his hair curling on his nape or make him laugh. God, Bellamy Blake laughing, an experience she'd live another thousand lives to hear and hear again and some more until her soul runs over with the sound. And her heart breaks and it breaks and it breaks until her drink is forgotten on the table and she has the girl in the red dress in her arms. Red like love. Red like desire. Red like a bleeding heart on the dance floor.

 _I'm not loved_ , she thinks as she twirls the girl around so her skirt flares. _I'm not loved but I am liked. It sits in the curve of this beautiful girl's mouth. I am liked for my eyes and my hair and my breasts. I am liked for the skin she so desperately wants to touch and touch and touch until I'm writhing beneath her. It's not enough but it is something. I am liked._

And the crowd hoots and it hollers as it makes room and for a moment her heart is not breaking. A laugh bubbles up Clarke's throat and the girl, this beautiful shining light teases her. She shimmies for another laugh and rubs against her to make her intentions known. I like you, I want you, and the night should end with us. And Clarke thinks on it. She does. Jordan has Madi for the night. No one is expecting her at home. It's been 132 years and she's a woman who likes sex, loves it, revels in the magic of it sparking up her system until she shakes apart. But when she turns there's Bellamy, and she's lost the thread. She's lost it and she can't get it back.

 _Here's a girl with flowers in her hair_ , she thinks. _And all I want to do is put them in yours. I want to make you crowns. I want you to give me what you can't give. I want. I want. I want. And I love. I love. I love. And it's not enough. It's never enough._

So when the song slows to an end and the girl smiles, Clarke kisses her on the cheek and thanks her for the dance before disappearing into the still applauding crowd.

She doesn't hear the door close behind her or the fast approaching feet catching up to her. But she does feel the hand against her wrist and its gentle, insisting tug. But she doesn't look up. No need. She knows who it is. Clarke would know that touch even if she were old and time took her memories. There is no world where she'd ever mistake Bellamy's hands on her for someone else's.

"Hey," he says with a hitch in his breath from chasing after her.

Clarke wills herself not think too hard about it. Bellamy's got a heart so big and a love so full for his family that he'd chase after any of them if they walked out. She knows this. It doesn't make her special in the way she'd like but it's nothing to knock.

"Hey," she says back, and she wants to kick herself. Reduced to repeating him. This is what she's become.

"Why did you leave so fast?"

"Um, well," Clarke starts and then takes a breath before trying again. "The dance kind of tired me out. Figured I'd call it a night."

"Oh."

"Yeah," she says sliding her hand out of his loose grip.

"I would have walked you home."

"I know," _which is why I didn't say goodbye_ , she thinks. "But I didn't want to cut your night short."

"That's...," he trails off before landing on some semblance of the word he's searching for. "...considerate?"

"Yep. Look, Bellamy, I don't want to keep you. I'll be fine. Go have fun."

"You're not keeping me," he says, walking around her to start heading down the street her house is on. "Unlike you, I said my goodbyes."

Clarke huffs a sigh and prepares herself for a soft Bellamy under the moonlight with his hair in disarray and a smirk on his lips. This is why she needed to escape. Running meant not having to look into his brown eyes and want for something just within in reach but forever out of her grasp. Now she has to make small talk when she'd rather crowd him against building sides.

 _I'm a fool_ , she thinks. _I'm a fool for you like the old songs says. And I just want to be alone. Please let me alone_.

They chat and she smiles and she tries not to fidget with the metal bracelet Madi gave her for her birthday. Her one piece of jewelry. Her good luck charm. The woman her daughter had bought it from told her that it was the kind of thing you wish on. A wish from the heart. It sounded like a load of shit to Clarke's ears but Madi had said, "You deserve good things, nomon, I wish you good things," and slipped the bracelet on her wrist before even paying the woman. She hasn't taken it off since.

"I had fun tonight," Clarke says when they reach her door.

"Good."

She nods. "Okay, well, goodnight."

Bellamy reaches for her again. "Wait, Clarke, I..."

Clarke looks down at his hand on hers. "Bellamy."

"I want you to be happy," he says. "I've never seen you look so..."

She looks up at him, at the hair shielding his eyes as he dips his head. Feels the way his thumb caresses her wrist bone.

"Bell?"

He looks at her then. The nickname causing him to swallow. And Clarke nearly apologizes because she's not sure if she gets to be as close to him as that name implies. He's not hers after all but in this moment it's hard to remember that because he's so close she can breath him.

"When I was on the ring," he says. "My best dreams were of you happy."

"Bellamy, I don't think--"

"It's selfish," he continues. "I know it's selfish of me to do this when you're just beginning to live again. I should be patient and give you time but, Clarke, it's impossible to have you close and not want you near."

She sucks in a breath.

"I waited," Bellamy says. "When we were kids at war, I waited. When the world was ending, I waited. I loved and was loved in the waiting but it always came back to you. It still comes back to you. I don't know how to love without you mixed in it somewhere, Clarke. And I don't want to be the kind of man who's half in with a woman. I want to be all in, but I can't do that when I'm still waiting on you."

Clarke feels like her heart has stopped. She's breathless, weightless, speechless, and so very close to crying.

"Please," Bellamy begs. "Say something."

"I love you," Clarke says finally, the words as soft as their meaning. "I've always loved you."

He sobs a laugh and it's one of the most beautiful sounds Clarke's ever heard.

"I thought I missed my chance," she says. "I thought you'd moved on."

"I thought I had to but that changed when I found you again," Bellamy says. "It shouldn't have because we were never...but it did and I couldn't hide from it."

"But you never said..."

"Neither did you," he reminds her.

"So...," she trails off looking down at their hands.

"So, I love you," Bellamy says. "I've always loved you."

Clarke's eyes snap to his and a beatific smile slowly lights her face. "Say it again."

"I love you."

She stands up on her toes and kisses him, her hands slip into his hair as she pulls him closer.

"I love you, too," she whispers back after breaking the kiss. "I love you."

Clarke kisses Bellamy again, snags his lip between her teeth. She peppers his mouth with I love yous.

When he grunts her name all she can think is mine mine mine. It makes her step back and reach for his hand, pulling him into her home, so she can crowd him against the door, all hers.

They eventually stumble down the hall, clothes tossed and fallen behind them.

Bellamy writes love into her stomach once he's got her on the bed and he keeps touching her thighs. Rubbing up and down, and Clarke just wants to wrap herself around him, so she pulls him into her and traps him with her legs.

"Gotcha ya," she says with a smile that makes him laugh and that's what she wants to do for life. Make him laugh. She tells him that as she brushes his hair out of his eyes.

"I want to make you happy," Bellamy says in reply.

 _You do_ , Clarke thinks as she kisses him again. _You do_.

And when he trails kisses down to her cunt and licks at her slit, nose bumping against her clit, she thinks, _You are_ , over and over until all she can do is make her feelings known with the whimpers that fall from her mouth and his name on her lips.

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

"I love you," Clarke says and then shatters. The pieces of her heart scatter like stars in the night sky and then return to form a perfect whole. A moon in her chest. A sun. A radiant body warming her from within like his fingers filling her snatch as she climbs again. And she rides the current of this feeling, rolling her hips as she clutches at Bellamy's shoulder.

"I missed this," she says thinking about sex and love and the thrum of a good orgasm as it builds.

"I missed you," Bellamy says, leaning up to nuzzle at the curve of her breast before tugging at her nipple with his teeth.

Clarke moans an agreement. "I want you closer."

He lifts her leg, and she gasps as he pushes in until he bottoms out.

And she can't help it, she starts to cry. Her heart is so full.

They move as one, giving and taking, coaxing pleasure out of each other.

Clarke can barely handle the way Bellamy stutters over her name as he gets close. He sounds so good and feels so good, it's making her slicker and slicker as her legs begin to shake.

"Bell," she moans. "Bell, please."

"Fuck," he gasps, lifting her leg higher as his hips begin to lose their rhythm. "Clarke."

She's off again her cunt clenching around him as she comes. It feels like coming home after being lost for a lifetime. She can't stop shaking even after he pulls out.

"Clarke?"

"Mmm...I'm," she tries. "I'm okay. It's just..."

Bellamy pulls her into his arms. "Breathe."

She does. One breath after another until she stops trembling. "I'm happy," Clarke says. "I'm...it's just my body processing happiness."

"I'm happy, too."

"Good," she says, snuggling closer. "Let's be happy together. Deal?"

Bellamy entwines their fingers. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback is appreciated. You can also find me on tumblr [@asoldierwitch](https://asoldierwitch.tumblr.com/).


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